NPR Summary

In 1923, 15-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment, and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children, whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. Their lives tell the story of a mother's monumental courage and the journey of a nation.

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Excerpt: The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

December 10, 2012 1:49 PM ET

Ruthie

1951

Lawrence had just given the last of his money to the numbers man when Hattie called him from a public telephone a few blocks from her house on Wayne Street. Her voice was just audible over the street traffic and the baby's high wail. "It's Hattie," she said, as though he would not recognize her voice. And then, "Ruthie and I left home." Lawrence thought for a moment that she meant she had a free hour unexpectedly, and he might come and meet them at the park where they usually saw each other.

They met an hour later at a diner on Germantown Avenue. The lunch rush was over, and Hattie was the lone customer. She sat with Ruthie propped in her lap, a menu closed on the table in front of her. Hattie did not look up as Lawrence approached. He had the impression that she'd seen him walk in and had turned her head so as not to appear to be looking for him. A cloth satchel sat on the floor next to her: embroidered, somber hued, faded. A bit of white fabric stuck up through the latch. He felt a rush of tenderness at the sight of the bag flopping on the linoleum.

Lawrence lifted the satchel onto the seat as he slid into the booth. He reached across and tickled Ruthie's cheek with his finger. He and Hattie had never discussed a future seriously. Oh, there had been plenty of sighs and wishes in the afternoon hours after they made love: they had invented an entire life out of what-ifs and wouldn't-it-be-nices. He looked at her now and realized their daydreams were more real to him than he'd allowed himself to believe.

Lawrence wasn't a man who got hung up on ideals or lofty sentiment; he had lived pragmatically as far as his emotions were concerned. He had a car and nice suits, and he had only infrequently worked for white men. He left his family behind in Baltimore when he was sixteen, and he had built himself up from nothing without any help from anyone. And if he had not been able to save his mother from becoming a mule, at least he had never been one himself. For most of his life, this had seemed like the most important thing, not to be anybody's mule. Then Hattie came along with all of those children, that multitude of children, and she didn't have a mark of them on her. She spoke like she'd gone to one of those finishing schools for society Negro girls that they have down south. It was as though she'd been dropped into a life of squalor and indignities that should not have been hers. With such a woman, if he would only try a bit harder, he might become a family man. It is true that he had not met Hattie's children, but their names — Billups and Six and Bell — were seductive as the names of foreign cities. In his imagination they were not so much children as they were small docile copies of Hattie.

"What happened?" he asked Hattie. Ruthie kicked at her swaddling. She looked very like him. The old wives' tale says babies look like their fathers when they are new to the world. Ruthie was light-skinned like him and Hattie, lighter than August. Of course, Lawrence had not seen Hattie's other children and could not know that most of them were this same milky tea color.

"Did August put his hands on you?" Lawrence asked.

"He's not that kind of man," she answered sharply.

"Anybody is, if his manhood is wounded enough."

Hattie looked at him in alarm.

"A lot of men, I mean," Lawrence said.

Hattie turned her face to the window. She would need money — that was certain — and they would be able to spend more time together now that August knew the truth. Lawrence could put her up somewhere. It occurred to him now that his choices were two: run from the diner and never see her again or become, all at once, a man of substance and commitment.

She shook her head. Later that evening, and for years to come, he would wonder if he had misunderstood her, if her shame wasn't at having a child with him but something larger that he didn't understand, and if it wasn't his failure to grasp this that had doomed them. But in that moment, he thought she only needed convincing, so he talked about renting her a house in Baltimore, where he'd grown up, and how they'd bring her children from Philadelphia and what it would all be like.

Hattie's eyes were red-rimmed, and she kept glancing over Lawrence's shoulder. He had never seen her so skittish, so in need of him. For the first time, Lawrence felt Hattie was his. This was not proprietary but something all together more profound — he was accountable to her, wonderfully and honorably obliged to take care of her. Lawrence was forty years old. He realized that whatever he'd experienced with other women — lust? infatuation? — had not been love.

Hattie was incredulous. She refused him.

"This is our chance," Lawrence said. "I'm telling you, we won't ever get over it, we won't ever forgive ourselves if we don't do this. Baby."

"But do you still ... ?" she asked.

Lawrence had discussed his gambling in passing. He had told Hattie he made his living for the most part as a porter on the trains, which had been true for a few months many years ago. Hattie's uncertainty made Lawrence understand that she did not take his gambling as lightly as he had supposed.

"I'll stop," he said. "I already have, really. It's just a game or two when it's slow with the trains."

Hattie wept in heavy wracking sobs that shook her shoulders and upset Ruthie.

"I'll stop," he said again.

Lawrence slid next to Hattie on the banquette. He leaned down and kissed his daughter's forehead. He kissed Hattie's temple and her tears and the corner of her mouth. When she calmed, Hattie rested her head on his shoulder.

"I couldn't stand to be a fool a second time," Hattie said. "I couldn't stand it."

From The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis. Copyright 2012 by Ayana Mathis. Excerpted with permission of Knopf.